St. Stephen's Cathedral, located in the centre of the city, is a remarkable monument of Austrian Late Gothic. Its construction began in 1137, but fires caused great damage to the Romanesque structure and construction of the present building began in 1359. During World War II, the cathedral was badly damaged but, thanks to the efforts of the entire Austrian people, was safely rebuilt.
Towers and portals of the cathedral
The gigantic gateway with an exquisitely carved portal and two identical Pagan towers has been preserved from the Romanesque basilica. The southwest portal is called the "Singing Portal", as only men and choristers entered the cathedral through it. The sculptures in the portal depict St Paul, witness to the martyrdom of St Stephen, and Duke Rudolf IV, the founder of the cathedral, holding a model of the cathedral. Women passed through the Bishop's Portal into the cathedral
In 1359 the South Tower was built and in the middle of the 15th century the North Tower was begun, but it remained unfinished. It houses the cathedral's largest bell (the second largest in Europe at 20183kg), the Pummerin. You can only hear the voice of the Pummerin 10 times a year. The cathedral's bright black-white-yellow-green roof, with geometric ornamentation, is made up of more than 250,000 majolica tiles.
Cathedral interior and museum
The interior of the cathedral is decorated with sculptures and stained glass windows. The pulpit, set in the main nave, is decorated with portraits of four Church Fathers. The sculptor depicted himself looking out of a "window" under the pulpit staircase. In the crypt under the main altar rest urns with the remains of some representatives of the Habsburg imperial dynasty.
The Cathedral Museum has a large collection of religious paintings and sculptures, valuable exhibits of decorative and applied arts.
This is interesting!
- To the left of the Giant Gate you can see the "Viennese measures" - the outline of a loaf of bread and a ruler with the length of an elbow. Here you could take a test measurement of the goods you bought and calculate how much you were cheated out of buying them. A dishonest merchant caught in this way was put in a cage and dipped several times into the waters of the Danube. Perhaps this is where the expression "tarnished reputation" came from....
- The northern tower of the cathedral is noticeably lower than the southern one, which has given rise to many legends, which include, of course, an unclean force, a beautiful lover, a broken architect. But most likely, there was not enough money as the Ottoman army was approaching Vienna at that time.
- For an extra fee you can visit the catacombs of the cathedral and go upstairs to the observation deck of the North Tower (by lift) or the South Tower (on foot), where you can get an indescribable view of the Austrian capital.
- At the entrance to the cathedral, an icon of the Virgin Mary from the Hungarian city of Pecs is located on the right. According to legend, when the country was threatened by the Turks, tears flowed from her eyes for a fortnight.
- The cathedral has a total of 18 altars, not counting the altars in the chapels. The most famous and worthy of close inspection are the central altar (Hochhaltar), created by the Pokk brothers in the 17th century, and the Wiener Neustadt Altar, considered to be the earliest Baroque altar in Vienna..
